When the woman has once taken flight, or is hesitating before taking
her flight, in the Eighth Year, it is an almost hopeless business for
the husband to call her back. Whenever she is called back, it is by
some outside influence, beyond _his_ sphere of influence, by some sudden
accident, by some catastrophe involving both of them, or by some severe
moral shock, shaking the foundations of their little home like an
earthquake. There are cases in which the woman has been called back by
the sudden smash-up of her husband’s business, by financial ruin. In his
social ladder-climbing he is too rash. One of the rungs of the ladder
breaks beneath his feet and he comes toppling down. Owing to this deadly
competition of modern life, he loses his “job.” It is given to a younger
or better man, or to a man with a stronger social pull. He comes home
one day with a white face, trembling, horribly scared, afraid to break
the news to a woman who has not been helpful to him of late, and of
whose sympathy he is no longer sure. He believes that this misfortune
is the last straw which will break their strained relations. He sees
the great tragedy looming ahead, hearing down upon him. But, curiously
enough, this apparent disaster is the salvation of both of them. The
despair of her husband calls to the woman’s loyalty. All her grievances
against this man are suddenly swallowed up in the precipice which has
opened beneath his feet. All her antagonism is broken down and dissolved
into pity. Her self-pride is slain by this man’s abasement. His
weakness, his need of help, his panic-stricken heart cry to her. After
all their drifting apart, their indifference to each other, their
independence, he wants her again. He wants her as a helpmeet. He wants
any courage she can give him, any wisdom. And she is glad to be wanted.
She stretches out her hands to him. They clasp each other, and there
is no longer a gulf beneath their feet; misfortune has built a bridge
across the gulf which divided them. More than that, all the little
meannesses of their life, all the petty selfishness of their days, all
the little futile things over which they have wrangled and jangled are
thrust on one side, and are seen in their right perspective. The things
that matter, the only things that matter, are seen, perhaps, for the
first time, clearly, in a bright light, now that they are face to
face with stem realities. The shock throws them off their pedestals of
conceit, of self-consciousness, of pretence. They stand on solid ground.
The shock has broken the masks behind which they hid themselves. It
has broken the hard crust about their hearts. It has shattered the idol
which they worshipped, the idol of the great god Snob.
And so they stare into each other’s soul, and take hands again like
little children, abandoned by the Wicked Uncles of life, and they grope
their way back to primitive things, and begin the journey again. They
have found out that this new comradeship is better even than the old
romantic love of their courting days. They have discovered something
of the great secret of life. They are humbled. They make new pledges to
each other, pick up the broken pieces of their hopes and dreams and
fit them together again in a new and sounder scheme. This time, in some
cases, they do not leave the baby out of the business. The wife becomes
a mother, and the child chases away all the ghosts which haunted her in
the Eighth Year. She no longer wants to take flight. She has been called
back.
It is nearly always some accident like this which calls the wife back,
some sudden, startling change in the situation, caused by outside
influences, or by the hand of Fate. Sometimes it is an illness which
overtakes the husband or wife. Holding hands by the bedside, they
stare into the face of Death, and again the trivialities of life, the
pettiness of their previous desires, the folly of their selfishness, the
stupidity of their little snobdom, are revealed by the whisperings of
Death, and by its warnings. The truth of things stalks into the bedroom
where the husband, or the wife, lies sleeping on the borderland. About
the sick bed the weeping woman makes new vows, tears wash out her
vanity, her self-conceit. Or, kneeling by the side of the woman whose
transparent hand he clasps above the coverlet, the husband listens to
the little voice within his conscience, and understands, with a great
heartache, the pitiful meaning of the domestic strife which seemed
to have killed his love for the woman for whose life now he makes a
passionate cry. In the period of convalescence, after Death has stolen
away, when life smiles again through the open windows, that man and
woman get back to sanity and to wisdom beyond that of common-sense. They
begin again with new ideals. Perhaps in a little while one of the rooms
becomes a nursery. They get back to the joy of youth, once more the
woman has been called back.
If none of these “accidents” happen, if some great influence like this
does not thrust its way into the lives of this husband and wife during
the crisis of the Eighth Year, if the woman is not caught up by some
great enthusiasm, or if she can find no work for the idle hands to do,
giving her new and absorbing interests to satisfy her heart and brain,
then the Eighth Year is a fatal year, and the President of the Divorce
Court has a new case added to his list, or the family records of the
country chronicle another separation, or another woman goes to prison
for arson or bomb-throwing. Because the laws of psychology are not so
erratic as the world imagines. They work out on definite lines. Certain
psychological forces having been set in motion, they lead inevitably to
certain results. When once a woman has lost her interest in her home and
husband, when she has become bored with herself, when she has a morbid
craving for excitement and adventures, when she has become peevish and
listless and hungry-hearted, she cannot remain in this condition. Those
forces within her are tremendously powerful. They must find some outlet.
They must reach a definite time of crisis when things have got to
happen. These vague yearnings must be satisfied, somehow, anyhow. The
emptiness of her heart must be filled by something or other. She will
search round with wondering, wistful eyes, more desperate day by day,
until she finds the thing, however evil it may be, however dangerous.
She must still that throbbing brain of hers, even if she has to take
drugs to do so. In spite of all the poison laws, she will find some kind
of poison, some subtle and insidious drug to give her temporary cure, a
period of vitality, a thrill of excitement, a glittering dream or two,
a relief from the dulness which is pressing down upon her with leaden
weights. She knows the penalty which follows this drug-taking--the awful
reaction, the deadly lethargy that follows, the nervous crises, the loss
of will-power, but she is prepared to pay the price because for a little
while she gets peace, and artificial life. The family doctors know the
prevalence of those drug-taking habits. They know the cause of them,
they have watched the pitiful drama of these women’s lives. But they
can do nothing to cut out the cause. Not even the surgeon’s knife can do
that; their warnings fall on deaf ears, or are answered by a hysterical
laugh.
As I have shown, there are other forms of drug-taking not less dangerous
in their moral effects. If the woman does not go to the chemist’s shop,
she goes to the darkened room of the clairvoyant and the crystal-gazer,
or to the spiritualistic séance, or to the man who hides his time until
the crisis of the Eighth Year delivers the woman into his hands.
Here, then, frankly and in detail, I have set out the meaning of this
dangerous year of married life, and have endeavored, honestly, to
analyze all the social and psychological forces which go to make that
crisis. It is, in some measure, a study of our modern conditions of life
as they prevail among the middle-classes, so that the problem is not
abnormal, but is present, to some extent, in hundreds of thousands
of small households to-day. All the tendencies of the time, all the
revolutionary ideas that are in the very air we breathe, all this
modern spirit of revolt against disagreeable duties, and drudgery, and
discipline, the decay of religious authority, the sapping of spiritual
faith, the striving for social success, the cult of snobbishness,
the new creed of selfishness which ignores the future of the race and
demands a good time here and now, the lack of any ideals larger than
private interests and personal comforts, the ignorance of men and women
who call themselves intellectual, the nervous irritability of husbands
and wives who live up to the last penny of their incomes, above all
the childlessness of these women who live in small flats and suburban
villas, and their utter laziness, all those signs and symptoms of
our social sickness lead up, inevitably, and with fatal logic, to the
tragedy of the Eighth Year.
PART II--A DEMONSTRATION
CHAPTER I
In the drawing-room of a flat in Intellectual Mansions, S. W., there
was an air of quietude and peace. No one would have imagined for a
moment that the atmosphere was charged with electricity, or that
the scene was set for a drama of emotional interest with tragic
potentialities. It seemed the dwelling-place of middle-class culture and
well-to-do gentility.
The room was furnished in the “New Art” style, as seen in the showrooms
of the great stores. There were sentimental pictures on the walls framed
in dark oak. The sofa and chairs were covered in a rather flamboyant
chintz. Through the French windows at the back could be seen the balcony
railings, and, beyond, a bird’s-eye view of the park. A piano-organ in
the street below was playing the latest ragtime melody, and there was
the noise of a great number of whistles calling for taxis, which did not
seem to come.
In a stiff-backed arm-chair by the fireplace sat an elderly lady, of a
somewhat austere appearance, who was examining through her spectacles
the cover of a paper backed novel, depicting a voluptuous young woman;
obviously displeasing to her sense of propriety. Mrs. Heywood’s sense of
propriety was somewhat acutely developed, to the annoyance, at times, of
Mollie, the maid-servant, who was clearing away the tea-things in a
bad temper. That is to say, she was making a great deal of unnecessary
clatter.
Mrs. Heywood ignored the clatter, and concentrated her attention on the
cover of the paper-backed book. It seemed to distress her, and presently
she gave expression to her distress.
“Dear me! What an improper young woman!”
Mollie’s bad temper was revealed by a sudden tightening of the lips and
a flushed face. She bent across an “occasional” table and peered over
the old lady’s shoulder, and spoke rather impudently.
“Excuse me, ma’am, but that’s _my_ novel, if you don’t mind.”
“I _do_ mind,” said Mrs. Heywood. “I was shocked to find it on the
kitchen dresser.”
Molly tossed her head, so that her white cap assumed an acute angle.
“I was shocked to see that it had gone from the kitchen dresser.”
Then she lowered her voice and added in a tone of bitter grievance--
“Blessed if one can call anything one’s own in this here flat.”
“It’s not fit literature for _any_ young girl,” said Mrs. Heywood
severely. She looked again at the flaunting lady with an air of extreme
disapproval.
“Disgusting!”
Mollie rattled the tea-things violently.
“It’s good enough for the mistress, anyhow.”
Mrs. Heywood was surprised.
“Surely she did not lend it to you?”
“Well--not exactly,” said Mollie, with just a trace of embarrassment. “I
borrowed it. It’s written by her particular friend, Mr. Bradshaw.”
“Mr. Bradshaw! Surely not?”
The old lady wiped her spectacles rather nervously.
“A very nice-spoken gentleman,” said Mollie, “though he does write
novels.”
Mrs. Heywood looked at the author’s name for the first time and
expressed her astonishment.
“Good gracious! So it is.”
Mollie laughed as she folded up the tea-cloth. She had gained a little
triumph, and scored off the “mother-in-law,” as she called the elderly
lady, in the kitchen.
“Oh, he knows a thing or two, he does, my word!”
She winked solemnly at herself in the mirror over the mantelshelf.
“Hold your tongue, Mollie,” said Mrs. Heywood sharply.
“Servants are not supposed to have any tongues. Oh, dear no!”
With this sarcastic retort Mollie proceeded to put the sugar-basin into
the china-cupboard, but seemed to expect a counter-attack. She was not
disappointed.
“Mollie!” said Mrs. Heywood severely, looking over the rims of her
spectacles.
“Now what’s wrong?”
“You have not cleaned the silver lately.”
“Haven’t I?” said Mollie sweetly.
“No,” said Mrs. Heywood. “Why not, I should like to know?”
Mollie’s “sweetness” was suddenly embittered. She spoke with ferocity.
“If you want to know, it’s because I won’t obey two mistresses at once.
There’s no liberty for a mortal soul in this here flat. So there!”
“Very well, Mollie,” said Mrs. Heywood mildly. “We will wait until your
mistress comes home. If she has any strength of mind at all she will
give you a month’s notice.”
Mollie sniffed. The idea seemed to amuse her.
“The poor dear hasn’t any strength of mind.”
“I am surprised at you, Mollie.”
“That’s why she has gone to church again.”
Mrs. Heywood was startled. She was so startled that she forgot her anger
with the maid.
“Again? Are you sure?”
“Well, she had a look of church in her eyes when she went out.”
“What sort of a look?” asked Mrs. Heywood.
“A stained-glass-window look.”
Mrs. Heywood spoke rather to herself than to Mollie.
“That makes the third time to-day,” she said pensively.
Mollie spoke mysteriously. She too had forgotten her anger and
impudence. She dropped her voice to a confidential tone.
“The mistress is in a bad way, to my thinking. I’ve seen it coming on.”
“Seen what coming on?” asked the elderly lady.
“She sits brooding too much. Doesn’t even pitch into me when I break
things. That’s a bad sign.”
“A bad sign?”
“I’ve noticed they’re all taken like this when they go wrong,” said the
girl, speaking as one who had had a long experience of human nature
in Intellectual Mansions, S. W. But these words aroused the old lady’s
wrath.
“How dare you!” said Mrs. Heywood. “Leave the room at once.”
“I must tell the truth if I died for it,” said Mollie.
The two women were silent for a moment, for just then a voice outside
called, “Clare! Clare!” rather impatiently.
“Oh, Lord!” said Mollie. “There’s the master.”
“Clare!” called the voice. “Oh, confound the thing!”
“I suppose he’s lost his stud again,” said Mollie. “He always does on
club nights. I’d best be off.”
She took up the tea-tray and left the room hurriedly, just as her
master came in. It was Mr. Herbert Heywood, generally described by
his neighbors as being “Something in the City”--a man of about thirty,
slight, clean-shaven, boyish, good-looking, with nervous movements and
extreme irritability. He was in evening clothes with his tie undone.
“Plague take this tie!” he growled, making use of one or two
un-Parliamentary expressions. Then he saw his mother and apologized.
“Oh, I beg your pardon, mother. Where’s Clare?”
Mrs. Heywood answered her son gloomily.
“I think she’s gone to church again.”
“Again?” said Herbert Heywood. “Why, dash it all--I beg your pardon,
mother--she’s always going to church now. What’s the attraction?”
“I think she must be unwell,” said Mrs. Hey-wood. “I’ve thought so for
some time.”
“Oh, nonsense! She’s perfectly fit.... See if you can tie this bow,
mother.”
Mrs. Heywood endeavored to do so, and during the process her son showed
great impatience and made irritable grimaces. But he returned to the
subject of his wife.
“Perhaps her nerves are a bit wrong. Women are nervy creatures.... Oh,
hang it all, mother, don’t strangle me!... As I tell her, what’s the
good of having a park at your front door--Oh, thanks, that’s better.”
He looked at himself in the glass, and dabbed his face with a
handkerchief.
“Of course I cut myself to-night. I always do when I go to the club.”
“Herbert, dear,” said Mrs. Heywood rather nervously.
“I--I suppose Clare is not going to bless you with a child?”
“_In this flat_!”
Herbert was startled and horrified. It was a great shock to him. He
gazed round the little drawing-room rather wildly.
“Oh, Lord!” he said presently, when he had calmed down a little. “Don’t
suggest such a thing. Besides, she is not.”
“Well, I’m nervous about her,” said Mrs. Heywood.
“Oh, rats, mother! I mean, don’t be so fanciful.”
“I don’t like this sudden craving for religion, Herbert. It’s
unhealthy.”
“Devilish unhealthy,” said Herbert.
He searched about vainly for his patent boots, which were in an obvious
position. It added to his annoyance and irritability.
“Why can’t she stay at home and look after me? I can’t find a single
damn thing. I beg your pardon, mother.... Women’s place is in the
home.... Now where on earth----”
He resumed his search for the very obvious patent boots and at last
discovered them.
“Oh, there they are!”
He glanced at the clock, and expressed the opinion that he would be late
for the club if he did not “look sharp.” Then a little tragedy happened,
and he gave a grunt of dismay when a bootlace broke.
“Oh, my hat! Why doesn’t Clare look after my things properly?”
Mrs. Heywood asked another question, ignoring the broken bootlace.
“Need you go to the club to-night, Herbert?”
Herbert was both astonished and annoyed at this remark.
“Of course I must. It’s Friday night and the one little bit of
Bohemianism I get in the week. Why not?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mrs. Heywood meekly. “Except that I thought
Clare is feeling rather lonely.”
“Lonely?” said Herbert. “She has you, hasn’t she?”
“Yes, she has me.”
Mrs. Heywood spoke as though that might be a doubtful consolation.
“Besides, what more does she want? She has her afternoon At Homes,
hasn’t she?”
“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Heywood, still more doubtfully.
“And she can always go to a matinée if she wants to, can’t she?”
“Yes, dear.”
“Then I have taken out a subscription to Mudie’s for her, haven’t I?”
Herbert Heywood spoke as though his wife had all the blessings of
life, as though he had provided her with all that a woman’s heart might
desire. But Mrs. Heywood interrupted his catalogue of good things.
“I think she reads too many novels,” she said.
“Oh, they broaden her mind,” said Herbert. “Although, I must
confess they bore _me_ to death.... Now what have I done with my
cigarette-case?”
He felt all over his pockets, but could not find the desired thing.
“Oh, the curse of pockets!”
“Some of them are very dangerous, Herbert.”
“What, pockets?”
“No, novels,” said Mrs. Heywood. “Look at this.”
She thrust under his eyes the novel with the picture of the flaming
lady.
“Gee whizz!” said Herbert, laughing. “Oh, well, she’s a married woman.”
“Do you see who the author is, Herbert?” Herbert look, and was
astonished.
“Gerald Bradshaw, by Jove! Does he write this sort of muck?”
“He has been coming here rather often lately. Especially on club-nights,
Herbert.” Herbert Heywood showed distinct signs of annoyance.
“Does he, by Jove? I don’t like the fellow. He’s a particularly fine
specimen of a bad hat.”
“I’m afraid he’s an immoral man,” said Mrs. Heywood.
Herbert shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, Clare can take care of herself.”
“I wonder,” said Mrs. Heywood, as though she were not at all sure. “My
dear, I think you ought to keep an eye on your wife just now.”
Herbert Heywood took his eye-glass out of a fob pocket and fumbled with
it.
“Keep an eye on her, mother?”
“She is very queer,” said Mrs. Heywood. “I can’t do anything to please
her.”
“Well, there’s nothing strange in that,” said Herbert. Then he added
hastily--
“I mean it’s no new symptom.”
Mrs. Heywood stared at her son in a peculiar, significant way.
“She looks as if something is going to--happen.”
Herbert was really startled.
“Happen? How? When?”
“I can’t exactly explain. She appears to be waiting for something--or
some one.”
Herbert was completely mystified.
“I didn’t keep her waiting this evening, did I?”
“I don’t mean you, dear,” said Mrs. Heywood.
“No?--Who, then?” asked Herbert.
Mrs. Heywood replied somewhat enigmatically. She gave a deep sigh and
said--
“We women are queer things!”
“Queer isn’t the word,” said Herbert.
He stared at the carpet in a gloomy, thoughtful way, as though the
pattern were perplexing him.
“Perhaps you’re right about the novels. They’ve been giving her notions,
or something.”
Mrs. Heywood crossed the room hurriedly and went over to a drawer in a
cabinet, from which she pulled out a number of pamphlets.
“Herbert,” she said solemnly, “she doesn’t read only novels. Look here.
Look at all these little books. She simply devours them, Herbert, and
then hides them.”
“Naturally, after she has devoured them,” said Herbert irritably. “But
what the deuce are they?”
He turned them over one by one, reading out the titles, raising his
eyebrows, and then whistling with surprise, and finally looking quite
panic-stricken.
“_Women’s Work and Wages_. Oh, Lord! John Stuart Mill on _The Subjection
of Women. The Ethics of Ibsen_. Great Scott! _The Principles of
Eugenics_.... My hat!”
“Quite so, Herbert,” said Mrs. Heywood, with a kind of grim satisfaction
in his consternation.
“I don’t mind her reading improper novels,” said Herbert, “but I draw
the line at this sort of stuff.”
“It’s most dangerous.”
“It’s rank poison.”
“That’s what I think,” said Mrs. Heywood.
“Where did she get hold of them?” asked Herbert.
Mrs. Heywood looked at her son as though she had another startling
announcement.
“From that woman, Miss Vernon, the artist girl who lives in the flat
above.”
“What, that girl who throws orange-peel over the balcony?”
“Yes, the girl who is always whistling for taxis,” said Mrs. Heywood.
“What, you mean the one who complained about my singing in the bath?”
“Yes, I shall never forgive her for that.”
“Said she didn’t mind if I sang in tune.”
“Yes, the one who sells a Suffragette paper outside Victoria Station.”
“It’s the sort of thing she would do,” said Herbert, with great sarcasm.
“I never liked her, my dear,” said Mrs. Heywood.
“Confound her impudence! As if a British subject hasn’t an inalienable
right to sing in his bath! She had the cheek to say I was spoiling her
temper for the rest of the day.”
Mrs. Heywood laughed rather bitterly. “She looks as if she had a
temper!”
Herbert gave the pamphlets an angry slap with the back of his hand and
let them fall on the floor.
“Do you mean to say _she_ has been giving Clare these pestilential
things?”
“I saw her bring them here,” said Mrs. Hey-wood.
“Well, they shan’t stay here.”
Herbert went to the fireplace and took up the tongs. Then he picked up
the pamphlets as though they might bite and tossed them into the flames.
“Beastly things! Burn, won’t you?”
He gave them a savage poke, deeper into the fire, and watched them
smolder and then break into flame.
“Pestilential nonsense!... That’s a good deed done, anyhow!”
Mrs. Heywood was rather scared.
“I am afraid Clare will be very angry.”
“Angry! I shall give her a piece of my mind. She had no right to conceal
these things.” He spoke with dignity. “It isn’t honorable.”
“No,” said Mrs. Heywood, “but all the same, dear, I wish you hadn’t
burned the books.”
“I should like to burn the authors of ‘em,” said Herbert fiercely.
“However, they’ll roast sooner or later, that’s a comfort.”
“You had better be careful, dear,” said Mrs. Heywood rather nervously.
“Clare is in a rather dangerous frame of mind just now.”
“Clare will have to learn obedience to her husband’s wishes,” said
Herbert. “I thought she had learned by this time. She’s been very quiet
lately.”
“Too quiet, Herbert. It’s when we women are very quiet that we are most
dangerous.” Herbert was beginning to feel alarmed. He did not like all
these hints, all these vague and mysterious suggestions.
“Good Lord, mother, you give me the creeps. Why don’t you speak
plainly?”
Mrs. Heywood was listening. She seemed to hear some sounds in the hall.
Suddenly she retreated to her arm-chair and made a pretence of searching
for her knitting.
“Hush!” she said. “Here she comes.”
As she spoke the words, the door opened slowly and Clare came in. She
was a tall, elegant woman of about thirty, with a quiet manner and
melancholy eyes in which there was a great wistfulness. She spoke rather
wearily--
“Not gone yet, Herbert? You’ll be late for the club.”
Herbert looked at his wife curiously, as though trying to discover some
of those symptoms to which his mother had alluded.
“I’m afraid that’s your fault,” he said.
“My fault?”
“Surely you ought to stay at home sometimes and help me to get off
decently,” said Herbert in an aggrieved way. “You know perfectly well my
tie always goes wrong.”
Clare sighed; and then smiled rather miserably.
“Why can’t men learn to do their own ties? We’re living in the twentieth
century, aren’t we?”
She took off her hat, and sat down with it in her lap.
“Oh, how my head aches to-night.”
“Where have you been?” asked Herbert
“Yes, dear, where _have_ you been?” asked Mrs. Heywood.
“I’ve been round to church for a few minutes,” said Clare.
“What on earth for?” asked Herbert impatiently.
“What does one go to church for?”
“God knows!” said Herbert bitterly.
“Precisely. Have you any objection?”
“Yes, I have.”
Herbert spoke with some severity, as though he had many objections.
“I don’t object to you going to your club,” said Clare.
“Oh, that’s different.”
“In what way?” asked Clare.
“In every way. I am a man, and you’re a woman.”
Clare Heywood thought this answer out. She seemed to find something in
the argument.
“Yes,” she said, “it does make a lot of difference.”
“I object strongly to this religious craze of yours,” said Herbert,
trying to be calm and reasonable. “It’s unnatural. It’s--it’s devilish
absurd.”
“It may keep me from--from doing other things,” said Clare.
She spoke as though the words had some tragic significance.
“Why can’t you stay at home and read a decent novel?”
“It is so difficult to find a _decent_ novel. And I am sick of them
all.”
“Well, play the piano, then,” said Herbert.
“I am tired of playing the piano, especially when there is no one to
listen.”
“There’s mother,” said Herbert.
“Mother has no ear for music.”
Mrs. Heywood was annoyed at this remark. It seemed to her unjust.
“How can you say so, Clare? You know I love Mozart.”
“I haven’t played Mozart for years,” said Clare, laughing a little. “You
are thinking of Mendelssohn.”
“Well, it’s all the same,” said Mrs. Heywood.
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Clare very wearily. She drooped her head and
shut her eyes until suddenly she seemed to smell something.
“Is there anything burning?”
“Burning?” said Herbert nervously.
“There is a queer smell in the flat,” said Clare.
Herbert stood with his back to the fire, and sniffed strenuously. “I
can’t smell anything.”
“It’s your fancy, dear,” said Mrs. Heywood.
“It’s the smell of burned paper,” said Clare quite positively.
“Do you think so?” said her mother-in-law.
“Burned paper?” said Herbert.
Clare became suspicious. She leaned forward in her chair and stared into
the fireplace.
“What are all those ashes in the grate?” she said.
“Oh, yes,” said Herbert, as though he had suddenly remembered. “Of
course I _have_ been burning some papers.”
“What papers?” asked Clare.
“Oh, old things,” said Herbert rather hurriedly. “Well, I had better be
off. Goodnight, mother.”
He kissed her affectionately and said:
“Don’t stay up late. I have taken the key, Clare.”
“I hope it will fit the lock when you come back,” said Clare.
She spoke the words very quietly, but for some reason they raised her
husband’s ire.
“For heaven’s sake don’t try to be funny, Clare.”
“I wasn’t trying,” said Clare very calmly. For a moment Herbert
hesitated. Then he came back to his wife and kissed her.
“I think we are both a bit irritable to-night, aren’t we?”
“Are we?” said Clare.
“Nerves,” said Herbert, “the curse of the age. Well, good-night.”
Just as he was going out, Mollie, the maidservant, came in and said:
“It’s Miss Vernon, ma’am.”
“Oh,” said Clare. She glanced at her husband for a moment and theft
said:
“Well, bring her in, Mollie.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Mollie, going out of the room again.
“Great Scott!” exclaimed Herbert, in a sudden excitement. “It’s that
woman who flings her beastly orange-peel into my window boxes.
Clare, I strongly object----”
Clare answered him a little passionately: “Oh, I am tired of your
objections.”
“She’s not a respectable character,” said Herbert.
“Hush, Herbert!” said Mrs. Heywood.
As she spoke the girl who had been called Madge Vernon entered the room.
She was a bright, cheery girl, dressed plainly in a tailor-made coat and
skirt, with brown boots.
“I thought I would look in for half-an-hour,” she said very cheerfully
to Clare. “If you are busy, send me packing, my dear.”
“I am never busy,” said Clare. “I have nothing in the world to do.”
“Oh, that’s rotten!” said Madge. “Can’t you invent something? How are
you, Mrs. Heywood?”
She shook hands with the old lady, who answered her greeting with a
rather grim “Good evening.”
“Herbert is going out to-night,” said Clare. “By the way, you don’t know
my husband.”
Madge Vernon looked at Herbert Heywood very sweetly.
“I have heard him singing. How do you do?”
Herbert was not at all pleased with her sweetness.
“Excuse me, won’t you?” he said. “I am just off to my club.”
“Don’t you take your wife with you?” asked Miss Vernon.
“My wife! It’s a man’s club.”
“Oh, I see. Men only. Rather selfish, isn’t it?”
Herbert Heywood was frankly astonished.
“Selfish? Why selfish? Well, I won’t stop to argue the point.
Good-night, Clare. Doubtless you will enjoy Miss Vernon’s remarkable and
revolutionary ideas.”
“I am sure I shall,” said Clare.
Mrs. Heywood followed her son to the door.
“Be sure you put a muffler round your neck, dear.”
Herbert answered his mother in a low voice, looking fiercely at Madge
Vernon.
“I should like to twist it round somebody else’s neck!”
“I will come and find it for you, dear.”
The two young women were left alone together, and Clare brought forward
a chair.
“Sit down, won’t you? Here?”
A moment later the front door was heard to hang and at the sound of it
Madge laughed a little.
“Funny things, husbands! I am sure I shouldn’t know what to do with
one.”
Clare smiled wanly.
“One can’t do anything with them.”
“By the by,” said Madge, “I have brought a new pamphlet for you. The
‘Rights of Wives.’”
Clare took the small book nervously, as though it were a bomb which
might go off at any moment.
“I have been reading those other pamphlets.”
“Pretty good, eh?” said Madge, laughing. “Eye-openers! What?”
“They alarm me a little,” said Clare. “Alarm you?” Madge Vernon was
immensely amused. “Why, they don’t bite!”
“Yes, they do,” said Clare. “Here.” She put her hand to her head as if
it had been wounded.
“You mean they give you furiously to think? Well, that’s good.”
“I’m not sure,” said Clare. “Since I began to think I have been very
miserable.”
“Oh, that will soon wear off,” said Madge Vernon briskly. “You’ll get
used to it.”
“It will always hurt,” said Clare.
Madge Vernon smiled at her.
“I made a habit of it.”
“It’s best not to think,” said Clare. “It’s best to go on being stupid
and self-satisfied.”
Clare’s visitor was shocked.
“Oh, not self-satisfied! That is intellectual death.”
“There are other kinds of death,” said Clare. “Moral death.”
Madge Vernon raised her eyebrows.
“We must buck up and do things. That’s the law of life.”
“I have nothing to do,” said Clare, in a pitiful way.
“How strange! I have such a million things to do. My days aren’t long
enough. I am always pottering about with one thing or another.”
“What kind of things?” asked Clare wistfully.
Madge Vernon gave her a cheerful little laugh.
“For one thing, it’s a great joke having to earn one’s own living. The
excitement of never knowing whether one can afford the next day’s meal!
The joy of painting pictures--which the Royal Academy will inevitably
reject. The horrible delight of burning them when they are rejected....
Besides, I am a public character, I am.”
“Are you? How?” asked Clare.
“A most notorious woman. I’m on the local Board of Guardians and
all sorts of funny old committees for looking after everything and
everybody.”
“What do you do?”
Clare asked the question as though some deep mystery lay in the answer.
“Oh, I poke up the old stick-in-the-muds,” said Madge Vernon, “and stir
up no end of jolly rows. I make them do things, too; and they hate it.
Oh, how they hate it!”
“What things, Madge?”
“Why, attending to drains, and starving widows, and dead dogs, and
imbecile children, and people ‘what won’t work,’ and people ‘what will’
but can’t.”
Clare laughed at this description and then became sad again.
“I envy you! I have nothing on earth to do, and my days are growing
longer and longer, so that each one seems a year.”
“Haven’t you any housework to do?” asked Madge.
“Not since my husband could afford an extra servant.”
Miss Vernon made an impatient little gesture.
“Oh, those extra servants! They have ruined hundreds of happy homes.”
“Well, we have only got one now,” said Clare. “The other left last
night, because she couldn’t get on with my mother-in-law.”
“They never can!” said Miss Vernon.
“Anyhow, Herbert doesn’t think it ladylike for me to do housework.”
Madge Vernon scoffed at the idea.
“Ladylike! Oh, this suburban snobbishness! How I hate the damn thing!
Forgive my bad language, won’t you?”
“I like it,” said Clare.
Miss Vernon continued her cross-examination.
“Don’t you even make your own bed? It’s awfully healthy to turn a
mattress and throw the pillows about.”
“Herbert objects to my making beds,” said Clare.
“Don’t you make the puddings or help in the washing up?”
“Herbert objects to my going into the kitchen,” said Clare.
“Don’t you ever break a few plates?”
Clare smiled at her queer question.
“No, why should I?”
“There’s nothing like breaking things to relieve one’s pent-up
emotions,” said Miss Vernon, with an air of profound knowledge.
“The only thing I have broken lately is something--here,” said Clare,
putting her hand to her heart.
Miss Vernon was scornful.
“Oh, rubbish! The heart is unbreakable, my dear. Now, heads are much
easier to crack.”
“I think mine is getting cracked, too,” said Clare.
She put her hands to her head, as though it were grievously cracked.
Madge Vernon stared at her frankly and thoughtfully.
“Look here,” she said, after a little silence, “I tell you what _you_
want. It’s a baby. Why don’t you have one?”
“Herbert can’t afford it,” said Clare. Madge Vernon raised her hands.
“Stuff and nonsense!” she said.
“Besides,” said Clare in a matter-of-fact way, “they don’t make flats
big enough for babies in Intellectual Mansions.”
Madge Vernon looked round the room, and frowned angrily.
“No, that’s true. There’s no place to keep a perambulator. Oh, these
jerry builders! Immoral devils!”
There was a silence between the two women. Both of them seemed deep in
thought.
Then presently Clare said: “I feel as if something were going to happen;
as if something must happen or break.”
“About time, my dear,” said Madge. “How long have you been married?”
“Eight years,” said Clare, in a casual way. Madge Vernon whistled with a
long-drawn note of ominous meaning.
“The Eighth Year, eh?”
“Yes, it’s our eighth year of marriage.”
“That’s bad,” said Madge. “The Eighth Year! You will have to be very
careful, Clare.”
Clare was startled. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“Haven’t you heard?” said Miss Vernon.
“Heard what?”
“I thought everybody knew.”
“Knew what?” asked Clare anxiously.
Madge Vernon looked at her in a pitying way.
“It’s in the evidence on the Royal Commission on Divorce.”
“What is?”
“About the Eighth Year.”
“What about it?” asked Clare. She was beginning to feel annoyed. What
was Madge hiding from her?
“Why,” said Madge, “about it being the fatal year in marriage.”
“The fatal year?”
The girl leaned forward in her chair and said in a solemn way:
“There are more divorces begun in the Eighth Year than in any other
period.”
Clare Heywood was scared.
“Good gracious!” she said, in a kind of whisper.
“It’s a psychological fact,” said Madge. “I work it out in this way.
In the first and second years a wife is absorbed in the experiment of
marriage and in the sentimental phase of love. In the third and fourth
years she begins to study her husband and to find him out. In the fifth
and sixth years, having found him out completely, she makes a working
compromise with life and tries to make the best of it. In the seventh
and eighth years she begins to find out herself, and then----”
“And then?” asked Clare, very anxiously.
Clare Heywood was profoundly disturbed.
“Well, then,” said Madge, “there is the devil to pay!”
“Dear God!” she cried.
“You see, it’s like this. If a woman has no child she gets bored... .
She can’t help getting bored, poor soul. Her husband is so devoted to
her that he provides her with every opportunity for getting bored--extra
servants, extra little luxuries, and what he calls a beautiful little
home. Ugh!” She stared round the room and made a face.
“He is so intent on this that he nearly works himself to death. Comes
home with business thoughts in his head. Doesn’t notice his wife’s
wistful eyes, and probably dozes off to sleep after supper. Isn’t that
so?”
“Yes,” said Clare. “Horribly so.”
“Well, then, having got bored, she gets emotional. Of course the husband
doesn’t notice that either. _He’s_ not emotional. He is only wondering
how to make both ends meet. But when his wife begins to get emotional,
when she feels that something has broken here” (she put her hand to her
heart), “when she feels like crying at unexpected moments and laughing
at the wrong time, why then----”
“What?” asked Clare.
“Why, then, it’s about time the husband began to notice things, or
things will begin to happen to his wife which he won’t jolly well like.
That’s all!”
Clare Heywood searched her friend’s face with hungry eyes.
“Why, what will his wife do?”
“Well, there are various alternatives. She either takes to religion----”
“Ah!” said Clare, flushing a little.
“Or to drink----”
“Oh, no!” said Clare, shuddering a little.
“Or to some other kind of man,” said Madge very calmly.
Clare Hey wood was agitated and alarmed.
“How do you know these things?” she asked.
“Oh, I’ve studied ‘em,” said Madge Vernon cheerfully. “Of course there’s
always another alternative.”
“What’s that?” asked Clare eagerly.
“Work,” said Madge Vernon solemnly.
“What kind of work?”
“Oh, any kind, so long as it’s absorbing and satisfying. Personally
I like breaking things. One must always begin by breaking before one
begins building. But it’s very exciting.”
“It must be terribly exciting.”
“For instance,” said Madge, laughing quietly, “it’s good to hear a pane
of glass go crack.”
“How does it make you feel?” asked Clare Heywood.
“Oh,” said Madge, “it gives one a jolly feeling down the spine. You
should try it.”
“I daren’t,” said Clare.
“It would do you a lot of good. It would get rid of your megrims.
Besides, it’s in a good cause.”
“I am not so sure of that,” said Clare.
“It’s in the cause of woman’s liberty. It’s in the cause of all these
suburban wives imprisoned in these stuffy little homes. It lets in God’s
fresh air.”
Clare rose and moved about the room. “It’s very stuffy in here,” she
said. “It’s stifling.” At this moment Mollie came in the room again, and
smiled across at her mistress, saying: “Mr. Bradshaw to see you, ma’am.”
Clare was obviously agitated. She showed signs of embarrassment, and her
voice trembled when she said:
“Tell him--tell him I’m engaged.”
“He says he must see you--on business,” said Mollie, lingering at the
door.
“On business?”
“That’s what my young man says when he whistles up the tube,” said
Mollie.
Madge Vernon looked at her friend and said rather “meaningly”: “Don’t
you _want_ to see him? If so I shouldn’t if I were you.”
“Oh, yes,” said Clare, trying to appear quite cool. “If it’s on
business.”
“Very well, ma’am,” said Mollie. As she left the room she said under her
breath: “I thought you would.”
“Do you have business relations with Mr. Bradshaw?” asked Madge Vernon.
“Yes,” said Clare; “no.... In a sort of way.”
“I thought he was a novelist,” said Madge.
“So he is.”
“Dangerous fellows, novelists.”
“Hush!” said Clare. “He might hear you.”
“If it’s on business I must go, I suppose,” said Madge Vernon, rising
from her chair.
“No, don’t go; stay!” said Clare, speaking with strange excitement.
As soon as she had uttered the words the visitor, Gerald Bradshaw, came
in.
He was a handsome, “artistic” looking man, with longish brown hair and
a vandyke beard. He was dressed in a brown suit, with a big brown silk
tie. He came forward in a graceful way, perfectly at ease, and with a
charming manner.
“How do you do, Mrs. Heywood?”
“I _must_ be going,” said Madge. “Good-by, dear.”
“Oh, _do_ stay,” whispered Clare.
“Impossible. I have to speak to-night.”
Although Madge Vernon had ignored the artist, he smiled at her and said:
“Don’t you speak by day as a rule?”
“Not until I am spoken to.... Good-night, Clare.”
“Well, if you must be going--” said Clare uneasily.
Madge Vernon stood for a moment at the door and smiled back at her
friend. “You will remember, won’t you?”
“What?”
“The Eighth Year,” said Madge. With that parting shot she whisked out of
the room.
Gerald Bradshaw breathed a sigh of relief. Then he went across to Clare
and kissed her hands.
“I can’t stand that creature. A she-devil!”
“She is my friend,” said Clare.
“I am sorry to hear it,” said Gerald Bradshaw.
Clare Heywood drooped her eyelashes before his bold, smiling gaze.
“Why did you come again?” she asked. “I told you not to come.”
“That is why I came. May I smoke?”
He lit a cigarette before he had received he permission, and after a
whiff or two said:
“Is the good man at the club?”
“You know he is at the club,” said Clare. “True. That is another reason
why I came. Clare Heywood’s face flushed and her voice trembled a
little.
“Gerald, if you had any respect for me----
“Respect is a foolish word,” said Gerald Bradshaw. “Hopelessly
old-fashioned. Now adays men and women like or dislike, hate or love.”
“I think I hate you,” said Clare in a low voice.
Gerald smiled at her.
“No, you don’t. You are a little frightened of me. That is all.”
The woman laughed nervously, but there was a look of fear in her eyes.
“Why should I be frightened of you?”
“Because I tell you the truth. I don’t keep up the foolish old pretences
by which men and women hide themselves from each other. You cannot hide
from me, Clare.”
“You seem to strip my soul bare,” said Clare and when the man laughed at
her she said: “Yes, I am frightened of you.”
“It is because you are like all suburban women,” said Gerald, “brought
up in this environment of hypocritical virtue and false sentiment. You
are frightened at the verities of life.”
Clare Heywood gave a deep, quivering sigh. “Life is a tragic thing,
Gerald,” she said. “Life is a jolly thing if one makes the best of it,
if one fulfils one’s own nature.”
“One’s own nature is generally bad.”
“Never mind,” said Gerald cheerfully. “It is one’s own. Bad or good, it
must find expression instead of being smothered or strangled. Life is
tragic only to those who are afraid of it. Don’t be afraid, Clare. Do
the things you want to do.”
“There is nothing I want to do,” said Clare wearily. “Nothing except to
find peace.”
“Exactly. Peace. How can you find peace, my poor Clare, in this stuffy
life of yours--in this daily denial of your own nature? There are heaps
of things you want.”
Clare laughed again, in a mirthless way. “How do you know?” she asked.
“Of course I know. Shall I tell you?”
“I think I would rather you didn’t,” said Clare.
“I will tell you,” said the man. “Liberty is one of them.”
“Liberty is a vague word.”
“Liberty for your soul,” said Gerald.
“Herbert objects to my having a soul.”
“Liberty for that beating heart of yours, Clare.”
The woman put both hands to her heart.
“Yes, it beats, and beats.”
“You want to escape, Clare.”
“Escape?”
She seemed frightened at that word. She whispered it.
“Escape from the deadening influence of domestic dulness.”
“I can’t deny the dulness,” said Clare.
“You want adventure. Your heart is seeking adventure. You know it. You
know that I am telling you the truth.”
As the man spoke he came closer to her, and with his hands in his
pockets stood in front of her, staring into her eyes.
“You make me afraid,” said Clare. All the color had faded out of her
face and she was dead white.
“You need not be afraid, Clare. The love of a man for a woman is not a
terrifying thing. It is a good thing. Good as life.”
He took her by the wrists and held them tight.
“Gerald!” said Clare. “For God’s sake.... I have a husband.”
“He bores you,” said the man. “He is your husband but not your mate. No
woman finds peace until she finds her mate. It is the same with a man.”
“I will not listen to you. You make me feel a bad woman!”
She wrenched her hands free and moved toward the bell.
Gerald Bradshaw laughed quietly. He seemed amused at this woman’s fear.
He seemed masterful, sure of his power over her.
“You know that you must be my mate. If not to-day, to-morrow. If not
to-morrow, the next day. I will wait for you, Clare.”
Clare had shrunk back to the wall now, and touched the electric bell.
“You have no pity for me,” she said. “You play on my weakness.”
“Fear makes you strong to resist,” said the man. “But love is stronger
than fear.”
He followed her across the room to where she stood crouching against the
wall like a hunted thing.
“Don’t come so close to me,” she said.
“What on earth have you rung the bell for?” asked the man.
“Because I ought not to be alone with you.”
They stood looking into each other’s eyes. Then Clare moved quickly
toward the sofa as Mollie came in.
“Oh, Mollie,” said Clare, trying to steady her voice, “ask Mrs. Heywood
to come in, will you? Tell her Mr. Bradshaw is here.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Mollie. “But she knows that already.”
“Take my message, please,” said her mistress.
“I was going to, ma’am,” said Mollie, and she added in an undertone, as
she left the room, “Strange as it may appear.”
Gerald laughed quite light-heartedly.
“Yes, you have won the trick this time. But I hold the trump cards,
Clare; and I am very lucky, as a rule. I have a gambler’s luck. Of
course if the old lady comes in I shan’t stay. She hates me like poison,
and I can’t be polite to her. Insincerity is not one of my vices.
Good-night, dear heart. I will come to you in your dreams.”
As he spoke this word, which brought a flush again to Clare Heywood’s
face, Mrs. Hey-wood, her mother-in-law, came in. She glanced from one to
the other suspiciously.
Gerald Bradshaw was not in the least abashed by her stern face.
“How do you do, Mrs. Heywood? I was just going. I hope I have not
disturbed you?”
Mrs. Heywood answered him in a “distant” manner:
“Not in the least.”
“I am glad,” he said. “I will let myself out. Don’t trouble.”
At that moment there was a noise in the hall, and Clare raised her head
and listened.
“I think I hear another visitor,” she said.
“In that ease I had better wait a moment,” said Gerald. “The halls
of these flats are not cut out for two people at a time. I will light
another cigarette if I may.”
“I thought I heard a latchkey,” said Mrs. Heywood. “Surely it can’t he
Herbert back so early?”
“No, it can’t be,” said Clare.
Gerald spoke more to himself than to the ladies:
“I hope not.”
They were all silent when Herbert Heywood came in quietly.
“I didn’t go to the club after all,” he said. Then he saw Gerald
Bradshaw, and his mouth hardened a little as he said, “Oh!... How do?”
“How are you?” asked Gerald, in his cool way.
“Been here long?” asked Herbert.
“Long enough for a pleasant talk with your wife.”
“Going now?”
“Yes. We have finished our chat. Goodnight. I can find my way out
blindfolded. All these flats are the same. Rather convenient, don’t you
think?”
He turned to Clare and smiled.
“_Au revoir_, Mrs. Heywood.”
She did not answer him, and he went out jauntily. A few moments later
they heard the front door shut.
“What the devil does he come here for?” growled Herbert rather sulkily.
Clare ignored the question.
“Why are you home so early?”
“Yes, dear, why didn’t you go to the club?” asked Mrs. Heywood.
Herbert looked rather embarrassed.
“Oh, I don’t know. I felt a bit off. Besides----”
“What, dear?” asked his mother.
“I thought Clare was feeling a bit lonely to-night. Perhaps I was
mistaken.”
“I am often lonely,” said Clare. “Even when you are at home.”
“Aren’t you _glad_ I have come back?” asked Herbert.
“Why do you ask me?”
“I should be glad if you were glad.” Clare’s husband became slightly
sentimental as he looked at her.
“I have been thinking it _is_ rather rotten to go _off_ to the club and
leave you here alone,” he said.
Mrs. Heywood was delighted with these words.
“Oh, you dear boy! How unselfish of you!”
“I try to be,” said Herbert.
“I am sure you are the very soul of unselfishness, Herbert, dear,” said
the fond mother.
“Thanks, mother.”
He looked rather anxiously at Clare, and said--
“Don’t you think we might have a pleasant evening for once?”
“Oh, that would be delightful!” said Mrs. Heywood.
“Eh, Clare?”
“How do you mean?” said Clare.
“Like we used to in the old days? Some music, and that sort of thing.”
“I am sure that will be _very_ nice,” said Mrs. Heywood.
“Eh, Clare?” said Herbert.
“If you like,” said Clare.
“Wait till I have got my boots off.” He spoke in a rather honeyed voice
to his wife.
“Do you happen to know where my slippers are, darling?”
“I haven’t the least idea,” said Clare.
Herbert seemed nettled at this answer.
“In the old days you used to warm them for me,” he said.
“Did I?” said Clare. “I have forgotten. It was a long time ago.”
“Eight years.”
At these words Clare looked over to her husband in a peculiar way.
“Yes,” she said. “It is our eighth year.”
“Here are your slippers, dear,” said Mrs. Hey wood.
“Oh, thanks, mother. _You_ don’t forget.”
There was silence while he took off his boots. Clare sat with her hands
in her lap, staring at the carpet. Once or twice her mother-in-law
glanced at her anxiously.
“Won’t you play something, Clare?” said the old lady, after a little
while.
“If you like,” said Clare.
Herbert resumed his cheerful note.
“Yes, let’s have a jolly evening. Perhaps I will sing a song presently.”
“Oh, do, dear!” said Mrs. Heywood.
“Gad, it’s a long time since I sang ‘John Peel’!”
Clare looked rather anxious and perturbed.
“The walls of this flat are rather thin,” she said. “The neighbors might
not like it.”
“Oh, confound the neighbors!” said Herbert.
“I will do some knitting while you two dears play and sing,” said the
old lady.
She fetched her knitting from a black silk bag on one of the little
tables, and took a chair near the fireplace. Clare Heywood went to the
music-stool and turned over some music listlessly. She did not seem to
find anything which appealed to her.
Her husband settled himself down in an arm-chair and loaded his pipe.
“Play something bright, Clare,” he said.
“All my music sounds melancholy when I play it,” said Clare.
“What, rag-time?”
“Even rag-time. Rag-time worst of all.”
Yet she began to play softly one of Chopin’s preludes, in a dreamy way.
“Tell me when you want me to sing,” said Herbert.
“I will,” said Clare.
There was silence for a little while, except for Clare’s dream-music.
Mrs. Heywood dozed over her knitting, and her head nodded on her chest.
Presently Herbert rose from his chair and touched the electric bell. A
moment later Mollie came in.
“Yes?” asked Mollie.
Herbert spoke quietly so that he should not interrupt his wife’s music.
“Bring me _The Financial Times_, Mollie. It’s in my study.”
“Yes, sir,” said Mollie.
She brought the paper and left the room again. There was another
silence, except for the soft notes of the music. Herbert turned over the
pages of _The Financial Times_, and yawned a little, and then let the
paper drop. His head nodded and then lolled sideways. In a little while
he was as fast asleep as his mother, and snored, quietly at first, then
quite loudly.
Clare stopped playing, and looked over the music-rest with a strange,
tragic smile at her husband and her mother-in-law. She rose from the
piano-stool, and put her hands to her head, and then at her throat,
breathing quickly and jerkily, as though she were being stifled.
“A jolly evening!” she exclaimed in a whisper. “Oh, God!”
She stared round the room, with rather wild eyes.
“It is stuffy here. It is stifling.”
She moved toward the piano again, with her hands pressed against her
bosom.
“I feel that something _must_ happen. Something _must_ break.”
She took up a large china vase from the piano, moved slowly toward the
window, hesitated for a moment, looked round at her sleeping husband,
and then hurled the vase straight through the window. It made an
appalling noise of breaking glass.
Herbert Heywood jumped up from his seat as though he had been shot.
“Good God!” he said. “What the devil!----”
Mrs. Heywood was equally startled. She sat up in her chair as though an
earthquake had shaken the house.
“Good gracious! Whatever in the world-----”
At the same moment Mollie opened the door.
“Good ‘eavins, ma’am!” she cried. “Whatever ‘as ‘appened?”
Clare Heywood answered very quietly:
“I think something must have broken,” she said.
Then she gave a queer, strident laugh.
CHAPTER II
MRS. Heywood was arranging the drawingroom for an evening At Home,
dusting the mantelshelf and some of the ornaments with a little hand
broom. There were refreshments on a side table. Mollie was trying to
make the fire burn up. Every now and then a gust of smoke blew down the
chimney. Clare was sitting listlessly in a low chair near the French
window, with a book on her lap, but she was not reading.
“Drat the fire,” said Mollie, with her head in the fireplace.
“For goodness’ sake, Mollie, stop it smoking like that!” said Mrs.
Heywood. “It’s no use my dusting the room.”
“The devil is in the chimney, it strikes me,” said Mollie.
Mrs. Heywood expressed her sense of exasperation.
“It’s a funny thing that every time your mistress gives an At Home you
are always behindhand with your work.”
Mollie expressed her feelings in the firegrate.
“It’s a funny thing people can’t mind their own business.”
“What did you say, Mollie?” asked Mrs. Heywood sharply.
“I said that the fire hasn’t gone right since the window was broke. Them
Suffragettes have a lot to answer for.”
“I cannot understand how it _did_ get broken,” said Mrs. Heywood. “I
almost suspect that woman, Miss Vernon.”
Clare looked up and spoke irritably.
“Nonsense, mother!”
“It’s no use saying nonsense, Clare,” said Mrs. Heywood, even more
irritably. “You know perfectly well that Miss Vernon is a most dangerous
woman.”
“Well, she didn’t break our window, anyhow,” said Clare, rather
doggedly.
“How do you know that? It is still a perfect mystery.”
“Don’t be absurd, mother. How did the vase get through the window?”
Mrs. Heywood was baffled for an answer.
“Ah, that is most perplexing.”
“Well, leave it at that,” said Clare.
Mollie was still wrestling with the mysteries of light and heat.
“If it doesn’t burn now,” she said, “I won’t lay another finger on
it--At Home or no At Home.”
She seized the dustpan and broom and, with a hot face, marched out of
the room.
Clare pressed her forehead with the tips of her fingers.
“I wish to Heaven there were no such things as At Homes,” she said
wearily. “Oh, how they bore me!”
“You used to like them well enough,” said Mrs. Heywood.
“I have grown out of them. I have grown out of so many things. It is as
if my life had shrunk in the wash.”
“Nothing seems to please you now,” said the old lady. “Don’t you care
for your friends any longer?”
“Friends? Those tittle-tattling women, with their empty-headed
husbands?”
Mrs. Heywood was silent for a moment. Then she spoke bitterly.
“Do you think Herbert is empty-headed?”
“Oh, we won’t get personal, mother,” said Clare. “And we won’t quarrel,
if you don’t mind.”
Mrs. Heywood’s lips tightened.
“I am afraid we shall if you go on like this.”
“Like what?” asked Clare.
“Hush!” said the old lady. “Here comes Herbert.”
Herbert came in quickly, and raised his eyebrows after a glance at his
wife.
“Good Lord, Clare! Aren’t you dressed yet?”
“There’s plenty of time, isn’t there?” said Clare.
“No, there isn’t,” said Herbert. “You know some of the guests will
arrive before eight o’clock.”
Clare looked up at the clock.
“It’s only six now.”
“Besides,” said Herbert, “I want you to look your best to-night. Edward
Hargreaves is coming, with his wife.”
“What has that got to do with it?”
“Everything,” said Herbert. “He is second cousin to one of my directors.
It is essential that you should make a good impression.”
“You told me once that he was a complete ass,” said Clare.
“So he is.”
“Well, then,” said Clare, quietly but firmly, “I decline to make a good
impression on him.”
“I must ask you to obey my wishes,” said Herbert.
Clare had rebellion in her eyes.
“I have obeyed you for seven years. It is now the Eighth Year.”
Herbert did not hear his wife’s remark. He was looking round the room
with an air of extreme annoyance.
“Well, I’m blowed!” he exclaimed.
“What’s the matter, dear?” asked Mrs. Hey-wood anxiously.
“You haven’t even taken the trouble to buy some flowers,” said Herbert.
“I left that to Clare,” said the old lady.
“Haven’t you done so, Clare?”
“No,” said Clare. “I can’t bear flowers in this room. They droop so
quickly.”
Herbert was quite angry.
“I insist upon having some flowers. The place looks like a barn without
them. What will our visitors say?”
“Stupid things, as usual,” said Clare quietly.
“I must go out and get some myself, I suppose,” said Herbert, with the
air of a martyr.
“Can’t you send Mollie, dear?” asked Mrs. Heywood.
“Mollie is cutting sandwiches. The girl is overwhelmed with work.
And--Oh, my stars!”
His mother was alarmed by this sudden cry of dismay.
“Now what is the matter, dear?”
“There’s no whisky in the decanter.”
“No whisky?”
“Clare,” said Herbert, appealing to his wife, “there’s not a drop of
whisky left.”
“Well, _I_ didn’t drink it,” said Clare. “You finished it the other
night with one of your club friends.”
“So we did. Dash it!”
“Don’t be irritable, dear,” said Mrs. Heywood.
“Irritable! Isn’t it enough to make a saint irritable? These things
always happen on our At Home nights. Nobody seems to have any
forethought. Every blessed thing seems to go wrong.”
“That is why I wish one could abolish the institution,” said Clare.
“What institution?”
“At Homes.”
“Don’t talk rubbish, Clare,” said Herbert angrily; “you know I have them
for _your_ sake.”
Clare laughed bitterly, as though she had heard a rather painful joke.
“For my sake! Oh, that is good!”
Herbert was distracted by a new cause of grievance as a tremendous puff
of smoke came out of the fire-grate.
“What in the name of a thousand devils----”
“It’s that awful fire again!” cried Mrs. Hey-wood. “These flats seem to
have no chimneys.”
“It’s nothing to do with the flat,” said Herbert. “It’s that fool
Mollie. The girl doesn’t know how to light a decent fire!”
He rang the bell furiously, keeping his finger on the electric knob.
“The creature has absolutely nothing to do, and what she does she
spoils.”
Mollie came in with a look of mutiny on her face.
“Look at that fire,” said Herbert fiercely.
“I am looking at it,” said Mollie.
“Why don’t you do your work properly? See to the beastly thing, can’t
you?”
Mollie folded her arms and spoke firmly.
“If you please, sir, wild horses won’t make me touch it again.”
“It’s not a question of horse-power,” said Herbert. “Go and get an old
newspaper and hold it in front of the bars.”
“I am just in the middle of the sandwiches,” said Mollie.
“Well, get out of them, then,” said Herbert.
Mollie delivered her usual ultimatum.
“If you please, sir, I beg to give a month’s notice.”
“Bosh!” said Herbert.
“Bosh indeed!” cried Mollie. “We’ll see if it’s bosh! If you want any
sandwiches for your precious visitors you can cut ‘em yourself.”
With this challenge she went out of the room and slammed the door behind
her.
Herbert breathed deeply, and after a moment’s struggle in his soul spoke
mildly.
“Mother, go and pacify the fool, will you?”
“She is very obstinate,” said Mrs. Heywood.
“All women are obstinate.”
Suddenly the man’s self-restraint broke down and he became excited.
“Bribe her, promise her a rise in wages, but for God’s sake see that
she cuts the sandwiches. We don’t want to be made fools of before our
guests.”
“Very well, dear,” said Mrs. Heywood. She hesitated for a moment at
the door, and before going out said: “But Mollie can be very violent at
times.”
For a little while there was silence between the husband and wife. Then
Herbert spoke rather sternly.
“Clare, are you or are you not going to get dressed?”
“I shall get dressed in good time,” said Clare quietly, “when I think
fit. Surely you don’t want to dictate to me about _that?_”
“Surely,” said Herbert, “you can see how awkward it will be if any of
our people arrive and find you unprepared for them?”
Clare gave a long, weary sigh.
“Oh, I _am_ prepared for them. I have been trying to prepare myself all
day for the ordeal of, them.”
“The ordeal? What the dickens do you mean?”
“I am prepared for Mrs. Atkinson Brown, who, when she takes off her
hat in the bedroom, will ask me whether I am suited and whether I am
expecting.”
“For goodness’ sake don’t be coarse, Clare,” said Herbert.
“It’s Mrs. Atkinson Brown who is coarse,” said Clare. “And I am prepared
for Mr. Atkinson Brown, who will say that it is horrible weather for
this time of year, and that business has been the very devil since there
has been a Radical Government, and that these outrageous women who are
breaking windows ought to be whipped. Oh, I could tell you everything
that everybody is going to say. I have heard it over and over again.”
“It does not seem to make much effect on you,” said Herbert. “Especially
that part about breaking windows.”
Clare smiled.
“So you have guessed, have you?”
“I knew at once by the look on your face.”
“I thought you agreed with your mother that some Suffragette must have
flung a stone from the outside.”
“I hid the truth from mother,” said Herbert. “She would think you were
mad. What on earth made you do it? _Were_ you mad or what?”
Clare brushed her hair back from her forehead.
“Sometimes I used to think I was going a little mad. But now I know what
is the matter with me.”
Herbert spoke more tenderly.
“What _is_ the matter, Clare? If it is a question of a doctor----”
“It’s the Eighth Year,” said Clare.
“The Eighth Year?”
“Yes, that’s what is the matter with me.”
“What on earth do you mean?” asked Herbert.
“Why, don’t you know? It was Madge Vernon who told me.”
“Told you what?”
“She seemed to think that everybody knew.”
“Knew what?” asked Herbert, exasperated beyond all patience.
“About the Eighth Year.”
“What about it?”
“It’s well known, she says, that the Eighth Year is the most dangerous
one in marriage. It is then that the pull comes, when the wife has found
out her husband.”
“Found out her husband?”
“And found out herself.”
Herbert spoke roughly. He was not in a mood for such mysteries.
“Look here,” he said. “I can’t listen to all this nonsense. Go and dress
yourself.”
“I want to talk to you, Herbert,” said Clare very earnestly. “I must
talk to you before it’s too late.”
“It’s too late now,” said Herbert. “Halfpast six. I must fetch that
whisky and buy a few flowers. I shall have to put on my boots again and
splash about in the mud in these trousers. Confound it!”
“Before you go you must listen, Herbert,” said Clare, with a sign of
emotion. “Perhaps you won’t have another chance.”
“Thank Heaven for that.”
“When I broke that window something else broke.”
“One of my best vases,” said Herbert with sarcasm.
“I think something in my own nature broke too. My spirit has broken
out of this narrow, deadening little life of ours, out of the smug
snobbishness and stupidity which for so long kept me prisoner, out of
the belief that the latest sentimental novel, the latest romantic play,
the latest bit of tittle-tattle from my neighbors might satisfy my heart
and brain. When I broke that window I let a little fresh air into the
stifling atmosphere of this flat, where I have been mewed up without
work, without any kind of honest interest, without any kind of food for
my brain or soul.”
Herbert stared at his wife, and made an impatient gesture.
“If you want work, why don’t you attend to your domestic duties?”
“I have no domestic duties,” said Clare. “That is the trouble.”
Herbert laughed in an unpleasant way.
“Why, you haven’t even bought any flowers to decorate your home! Isn’t
that a domestic duty?”
Clare answered him quickly, excitedly.
“It’s just a part of the same old hypocrisy of keeping up appearances.
You know you don’t care for flowers in themselves, except as they help
to make a show. You want to impress our guests. You want to keep up the
old illusion of the woman’s hand in the home. The woman’s touch. Isn’t
that it?”
“Yes, I do want to keep up that illusion,” said Herbert; “and by God,
I find it very hard! You say you want an object in life. Isn’t your
husband an object?”
Clare looked at him with a queer, pitiful smile.
“Yes, he is,” she said slowly.
“Well, what more do you want?”
“Lots more. A woman’s life is not centered for ever in one man.”
“It ought to be,” said Herbert. “If you had any religious
principles----”
“Oh,” said Clare sharply, “but you object to my religion!”
“Well, of course I mean in moderation.”
“You have starved me, Herbert, and oh, I am so hungry!”
Herbert answered her airily.
“Well, there will be light refreshments later.”
“Yes, that is worthy of you,” cried Clare. “That is your sense of
humor! You have starved my soul and starved my heart and you offer
me--sandwiches. I am hungry for life and you offer me--the latest
novel.”
Herbert paced up and down the room. He was losing control of his temper.
“That is the reward for all my devotion!” he said. “Don’t I drudge in
the city every day to keep you in comfort?”
“I don’t want comfort!” said Clare.
“Don’t I toil so that you may have pretty frocks?”
“I don’t want pretty frocks.”
“Don’t I scrape and scheme to buy you little luxuries?”
“I don’t want little luxuries,” said Clare.
“Is there anything within my means that you haven’t got?”
Clare looked at him in a peculiar way, and answered quietly--
“I haven’t a child,” she said.
“Oh, Lord,” said Herbert uneasily. “Whose fault is that? Besides, modern
life in small flats is not cut out for children.”
“And modern life in small flats,” said Clare, “is not cut out for
wives.”